Plastic bags and yard waste

Thanks to The Courier-Journal for an informative editorial in favor of a citywide ban on the use of plastic bags for the disposal of leaves and other yard waste (Nov. 1). I read the piece with a mixture of gratitude for the educational article, and yet outrage at Metro Council President Jim King for obstructing the progress on this ban.

Over the past four years, my husband and I have created four rain gardens, the use of rain barrels for watering our 55 native plants and shrubs, the use of a rotary mower most of the summer, and also the mowing of our leaves back into the yard in the fall seasons. Our compost pile is rich with organic materials from the collection of coffee grounds and a variety of vegetable scraps, grass clippings and leaves. We love fertilizing the native plants from our own compost pile and have watched them thrive accordingly.

The sight of the photograph which accompanied the C-J editorial was extremely disturbing to us, and should be disturbing to everyone who lives here. All of those leaves that could be used later for compost are now wasted permanently from being mixed in with the non- biodegradable plastic bags!

I would encourage anyone and everyone to do what we did today, and call or email Mr. King and your own district representative on the council, to urge them to support the ban on the use of plastic bags for yard waste.

ANNE MILLIGAN

Louisville 40291 -

Wasteful shutdown

For 16 days in October, the GOP manufactured a crisis that was months in the planning by a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists to defund Obamacare. When that failed, they shut down the government.

This was unprecedented and never should have happened. It led to a $24 billion economic shortfall, affecting more than 800,000 government workers, federal courts, disabled veterans, the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as businesses.

Conservative activists and the Tea Party Caucus in Congress spearheaded the shutdown, and the threat to defund Obamacare, with the financial backing of the Koch Brothers, worth more than $35 billion each, as reported by The New York Times.

Speaker of the House John Boehner wouldn't move when the president and the Congress asked for a vote to end the shutdown. And now all over Capitol Hill, with the help of a biased, pro-Republican media, all you can hear from the GOP is how the Healthcare.gov website is not working. The GOP even called for Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to stop her work to appear in a hearing on Capitol Hill. The president has had to provide further explanations and respond to endless attacks instead of dealing with critical issues like passing the American jobs bill and creating real jobs, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and addressing education and the pending sequestration.

It is so obvious that the Republican-led House hates President Obama so much that they have been obsessed with stopping him. They just don't get it that God and the American people put him in the White House.

I would like to know why the Congress is not calling for a full-scale investigation of the federal government shutdown led by tea party nationalists, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz? Wasn't this shutdown an act of tyranny? And what are they doing to make up for the $24 billion loss in economic activity during the federal government shutdown?

GRACIE LEWIS

Louisville 40211 -

Heckuva job, again

Congress cost us taxpayers $24 billion last month holding their breath until turning blue to attempt to stop Obamacare.

Now when they come back after the shutdown one of the first things passed is taking food away from one in seven Americans. Three words come to mind: "Heckuva job, Brownie!"

GARY KRUSE

Louisville 40220 -

No excuse for blackface

I will give guest columnist Emily Ruppel (Oct. 31, "Candy, costumes, pumpkins, prejudice") the benefit of the doubt that, given that she did not know the offensive history of the Mammy caricature, she was equally unaware of the history of blackface in America. Its use in minstrel shows to establish racist caricatures, including the Mammy caricature, means that there really cannot be an innocent use of blackface today. While I would suggest that there are plenty of white characters and historical figures that individuals like Ms. Ruppel and myself could portray; no matter who they go as, there is no excuse for them to use blackface as part of their costumes.